As a layperson I got the impression that lying to people about the effectiveness of N95 face masks to prevent viral infections was done on purpose to prevent further runs and hoarding of face masks so they could actually be used where they are needed - in the medical profession.
The idea that the medical profession would assume that face masks should not be recommended based on the idea that people don't know how to wear them correctly and the virus is primarily spread through contact surfaces seems ... odd.
Why would the CDC assume that covid spreads drastically differently than something like the rhinovirus then make policy decisions based on this assumption?
Certainly someone at the CDC had some idea that covid could be spread from aerosolozed droplets...?
Honestly I would rather believe that the CDC lied on purpose for the greater good than to believe they are incompetent.
Ugh, okay, for the last time, I'm not actually commenting on the statement the CDC made. I was *just* saying that I could understand why medical professionals might look at the situation where there is a PPE shortage, look at lay people's inability to put on and take off masks safely, and think "hmm...maybe we shouldn't be actively recommending PPE for lay folk." Not that they should lie to people and then turn around and say "okay, now ignore that lie."
I've just trained too many staff on proper PPE use and watched people do dumb and dangerous shit that puts themselves at risk. It's the same way it's not advised for food prep staff to wear gloves, because they don't use them properly and end up creating more risk. There's no question that proper use of gloves in food prep is safer, but actual use is often a disaster.
Obviously proper use of PPE is helpful, but I can understand doctors questioning improper use of PPE. All I could picture was people walking around grocery stores wearing gloves, therefore not sanitizing their hands, and then touching their face over and over to put on and take off their masks, or pull them under their chins to talk.
But hey, I was wrong. Contact wasn't the concern it was thought to be and it turned out breathing and talking were bigger concerns and any masking was critical, even if done horribly wrong. I didn't know that at the beginning. I was hyper focused on contact. I was sanitizing frickin' everything as if I was still in my clinic. Eventually it became abundantly clear that groceries and deliveries could come into my house without having to be quarantined or dipped in a diluted bleach bath, and that was cool because that was tedious.
As I said, we learned a lot. Like not to lie about policies that you have to try and reverse shortly afterwards.
ETA: I suppose technically it wasn't a lie, the research available on public masking to reduce community spread was actually highly conflicted in 2020. It's an almost impossible thing to control in research, so it makes sense that the existing research at the time was a conflicted mess. But obviously the deception comes from the fact that the research wasn't really the primary reason for the recommendation.
Still, again, frickin' lesson learned. Look at the anti masking shit show that followed in the US...fucking crazy. That's another thing that I could have never, ever seen coming. It would never in a million years occur to me that the public would become hostile about protecting themselves.
Fucking wild.
Yet again...we learned a lot.
I get what you are saying - you can understand why a medical professional would make this recommendation. Not that you endorsed this recommendation per se or endorsed what the CDC said.
As someone who assumed this was spread primarily through the air and who bought N95 masks for my family when Covid was in China, I am genuinely curious why so many medical professionals such as yourself assumed it would primarily be spread through contact though.
I get that we had no firm evidence that it was spread primarily from aerosol droplets, but IIRC didn't we ALSO have no firm evidence that it was spread primarily through contact? All I remember reading at the time was some studies showing how long the virus could remain viable on different surfaces at different temperatures and humidity levels so we only proved that it COULD be spread this way in theory, not that it WAS being spread primarily this way in practice.
Then I remember a LOT of medical professionals prancing around singing the same song about contact spread that wasn't supported by any real evidence. It just seemed like an absurd amount of group think going on in a profession where people don't seem to be permitted to challenge the status quo.
I mean - we had some estimates for the R0 value for the virus, that seemed far more consistent with other viruses that are known to primarily spread through aerosolized droplets than contact surfaces.
I understand why right wing Republicans wanted to burn their masks. There is a long human history of war and dictatorship and people in authority hurting their subjects in the world that caused a lot of their fears initially, which then continued through the generations, which may seem completely irrational in the modern world. But I at least understand that mindset and mental framework. It even makes sense to me, given historical context.
I have no idea why so many medical professionals would assume COVID was spread primarily through contact and make policy decisions based on this idea.
In the US there were trained medical professionals arguing that an N95 mask is not effective at combating the spread outside the hospital, while in the same breath begging for more N95 masks to stop the spread within the hospital.
I find the idea that people should be told not to wear a life saving device during a pandemic because they lack medical credentials and thus don't know how to wear a mask to be kind of condescending, honestly.
This would be like me assuming that anyone who has not written 500,000+ lines of code for an engineering application lacks basic logic and reasoning abilities.
I get that some people have no idea how to wear PPE. What I'm saying is to make this general recommendation for everyone in the US from our highest medical authorities seemed either condescending, ignorant, or frankly unethical, depending on what you think the rationale was.
A surprising number of medical professionals seem to blindly follow these sorts of recommendations without question, because it is easier to appeal to some authority figure than it is to appeal to actual data these days. So by extension this makes the entire medical community *appear* sort of ignorant in this regard simply because a lot of them are blindly following CDC guidelines. At least in this very specific circumstance.
Again - I understand what you are saying here...you can understand why medical professionals would make this recommendation. What I am saying is - unless there is some sort of study showing that improper mask usage generally results in further spread of a virus within a population, then it is unethical to make this sort of recommendation because it is not based on any actual data.
I'm not arguing against what you are saying or judging you.
I'm trying to understand what scientific studies you read, or what sources you were listening to that would cause you and every other medical professional to conclude that COVID is spread primarily through contact surfaces in the spring of 2020.
Because as a layperson who lacks medical training the data itself seemed absurdly obvious to me.
So I have to conclude that either I missed some very obvious studies at the time, or misunderstood something about the studies I read, or that the entire medical community is prone to group think and randomly makes stupid recommendations based on a misunderstanding of the data.
ETA: For reference, most of the studies and information I was reading at the time originated from Dr. John Campbell's Youtube videos. So it's not like I had access to some specialized medical journals or knowledge or training or anything...which presumably the CDC has access to.
